The Politics of Extermination
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
In 1895, Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, asserted: “We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country … expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”
On August 22, 2025, the U.N.’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) issued a report on Israel’s ongoing famine campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza, noting, “Famine is not about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival.”
Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, issued a warning that said, in part:
It is a famine. The Gaza Famine.
It is a famine that we could have prevented, if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel.
It is a famine within a few hundred metres of food, in a fertile land.
It is a famine that hits the most vulnerable first. Each with a name, each with a story. That strips people of dignity before it strips them of life. That forces a parent to choose which child to feed. That forces people to risk their lives to seek food.
It is a famine that we repeatedly warned of. But that the international media has not been allowed in to cover. To bear witness.
It is a famine in 2025. A 21st-century famine watched over by drones and the most advanced military technology in history.
It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war.
Netanyahu insists that says........
